CHANNEL SURFING.

Braugher Is On The Bubble

April 02, 2001|By Steve Johnson.

It's nail-biting time for television producers, as firm decisions will be made in the next month or so about whose shows get to come back for another season.

Some of the nubbiest fingernails in Hollywood have to belong to Paul Attanasio, the former Washington Post writer who is executive producer of "Gideon's Crossing." Despite strong critical praise for one of the top dramas of this season, the hospital show, featuring the unfailingly terrific Andre Braugher, is having trouble drawing an audience.

Monday's (9 p.m., WLS-Ch. 7) penultimate episode of the series' first -- and hopefully, not last -- season shows why this bold, often experimental series deserves to return.

The personal and professional pressures on Braugher's recent widower doctor start to mount in a more concentrated fashion. There's an emergency involving his troubled young son. His medical judgment is questioned.

Braugher and the character, all season, have been building toward this, suggesting, in wonderfully subtle ways, how his Old Testament rectitude was simply a lid on a stew of emotion.

This is not only a complex and compelling hour of television, it is a showcase for one of the great actors.